Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1887-03-28
Dignity of Labor.

Dignity of Labor.
The old brutal notion has not vet
been lived down, that the laborer
need only to be a huge mass of meat
and bones, that can hold a pillow or
drive a jac> plane, and valued only
for his size, toughness of muscles
and the number of pounds avOirdu-
pois he may chance to weigh. The
voice of history proclaims that the
world estimates brute force and pow
er of brute endurance to be all that a
laborer needs that mind and thought
are useless to the man that works for
a living; and that to dig for money,
to drudge like a slave, live like a
miser and die like a brute is the
height of his ambition. Hence come
the terms, ''mudsills," "small-fsted
farmers" ''greasy mechanics" and
"fiIthv operatives" as applied to the
toiling millions, who labor to make
the earth bloom in perennial beauty
and fruitfulness. These terms are
synonymous of the workingman, to
degrade and demoralize the soul.
This is deep wrong at the founda-
ton of society, and the laboring class
is not wholly guiltless for it. The
/ fo, fo1r 70 lnxr- ,fI H.,
own calling, which tends to keep
| these debasing ideas in circulation.
They go to their hard days wor<
with grumbling, and when the sun
burns their reeking brows, or the
cold benumbs their brawny frames,
they think they realize the primal
curse pronounced upon labor, and
pine at their hard lot. Their daily
routine is much like this Morning
calls them up from their tired sleep
noon finds them with weary breath
and night comes when their limbs and
muscles ache with over-eXertion, and
| thev sink into slumber with the cares
| of the dread tomorrow. They dream
of their wretched fate, and degrade
their minds with low thoughts, per-
haps at the same time owning many
acres around them, yet work from
sunrise to twilight, and then retire
to a spot where cluster but few asso-
Citations of "sweet home" The soul
| becomes sick at heart and torpid and
all the baser propensities are quick
ened into feverish activity. Labor
becomes degraded. The farm loses
its charms, and the talented minds
born upon it sigh to enjoy the honors
and emoluments of office or a profess
sional life. So labor, instead of re-
tanning the best intellects in the shop
and field, sends them to be set up
and knocked down by wooden-headed
politicians, in the game of spoils, or
to engage in the so-called higher
fields of human endeavor.
Other ranks also tend to rivet this
low conception of the laborers life
upon public sentiment. Professional
men are apt to get perched upon high
towers of self-conceit, Their policy
is to keep the noses of the laboring
class fast down to the grindstone,
arrogating to themselves the proud
assumption that all knowledge is shut
up in the learned professions, and is
only charmed out by the magic infu-
ence of a college sheepskin. The
doctors, full of quackeries the
preachers, full of theology; the law
yers, barren of the truth these after
drawing what they can from the work
ers, make it their policy to keep them
down where they can still prey upon
them. a spendthrift administration
squanders its millions of hungry Of
fcials but to its millions of prodnc-
ers, as a grateful return for all this,
gives few worthless patent office re-
ports or five cent paper of beet seed
to about five thousand farmers.
How are these evils TO be redressed!
BY the aristocracy of labor asserting
itself. Earth has its titled aristocra-
cies of birth, wealth and learning.
But there is an aristocracy nobler
than all these,-the aristocracy Of a
hard, enduring brotherhood Of toll.
This ought to link humanity together
in the bonds of kindred sympathies,
the dignity of labor. The time Is
coming when a man who has knOwl-
edge enough to properly cultivate
the land, and teach it To his sons, will |
rank before our heroes and statesmen. |
The day is coming in the new order |
of things when an honest wOrsing |
citizen placed in the scales Of true
manhood will outweigh more than q 1
mountain Of high-headed dudes. Phy- |
sical toll and common sense must yet |
outweigh all the fiu nkeyism and snob-
ism which fiji the world The earth |
tillers are the peerless noblemen. Tho /
shop workers are their brothers in 4
toll, They have worth ia the shake
of their big fists. Labor Of the heart,
brain and hand are all alike honora-
ble-the old trinity of eternal truth
We must impress upon the public